Vector Commissions?

If you've noticed, I've recently been churning out a bunch of custom vectors. These are for an Equestria Daily banner I'm working on. Now, I've gotten compliments on them, and someone even asked if I did commissions for vectors! Now, before I list any prices, let me tell you a little bit about the vectorizing process.

The first step in vectoring is finding the pose. There are two ways I can do this. The first, and easier method, is to find a full pose from the show to work off of and use as a base. For these, I generally trace the body outline, then create custom hair for it. I haven't needed to copy any of the main six's hairstyles yet, so all of these have been unique. I look at it, lay it out, then put it into the style of the show. Simple! The second method is a little more time consuming. This is the splicing method. With this technique, I take multiple images and layer them so that different parts create a unique pose. Then, I copy what I need to so it makes the look I'm going for. At the end of the posing stage, I have a pose that I want, and all of the body parts are in place.

The second step is the actual tracing part. For this, I use Adobe Flash CS5. This step, depending on the complexity of the vector, takes me 1 to 2 hours of work. All it really boils down to is using the line tool to trace lines over the image(s) and line things up so that the colors will be correct when added. You can find a video of myself performing this step here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BuAM8…

The third step, and second easiest, is applying colors to the image. Using the bucket tool, I fill in the borders that I created in the previous step. Because of how Flash works, it fills in these sections almost perfectly, and no extra lines or shapes are needed for coloring. After this step is finished, it's on to the fourth step!

Cleanup! In this step, I go through the vector and double click to select groups of lines and delete them. After that's done, I usually fill the background with a vibrant color to look for any holes in the coloring that Flash may have missed when filling in. It has these problems because sometimes, it attaches lines fully together, but forgets to fill in the areas it just fixed. It's a slightly irritating little thing, but it happens. It's easy to fix. By this point, the vector is pretty much done. It's been drawn and colored.

The final step is resizing. This is by far the easiest step. I simply select everything I've done and type in my preferred resolution. I usually pick whichever is value is larger and bump it to something like 2000 or 3000, making a sufficiently large vector. When it looks all good, I delete all of my references (because they'll show up on the final product even if hidden) and export as a transparent PNG.

So, that's the process. It takes 2 to 3 hours for each vector, and the completed .FLA file is less than a megabyte, generally!

Now, on to the pricing. I consulted some friends about pricing, and I've come to something like this...

Straight recoloring of an existing vector (i.e. no custom hair or poses) - $10
Custom hair and pose - $15
Any additional accessories or features - $2 each

Additional characters - Half of everything above.

Examples? You want... a recolored Twilight in her awesome pose, but with glasses: $12 ($10 + $2). Your OC, with a scarf, hat, and boots: $21 ($15 + $2 + $2 + $2). Just your OC with correct hair and a custom pose: $15. Your custom hair OC with an Applejack recolor? $20 ($15 + $5).

Thoughts? Opinions? Ideas? I'm all for suggestions, and since my paypal doesn't work at the moment, I have plenty of time to readjust things or make things more fair. Feel free to comment and tell me if you're interested, because I can completely do this stuff. There are plenty of examples in my gallery!